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Sick, sick, sick.
I'll survive, but the timing of this cold is inconvenient to say the least.
By the way, don't see Fired! unless you really want to throw up. I could go on at great length about why it's incredibly reactionary and stupid, but it probably isn't worth the bandwith. It's basically a device to make bosses feel better about firing their workers.
It starts with whiny, neurotic self-pity—and at the risk of sounding anti-Semitic, it's a particularly New York Jewish sort of neurotic self-pity, the sort that made Woody Allen's career. Unfortunately, Allen was right about one thing—Gurwitch is crap at it. So she gets fired, and talks to everyone she knows about their getting-fired experiences.
Problem is that she only seems to know people exactly like herself—neurotic unfunny comedians. So she manages to hit on the self-esteem aspects of getting fired (it's like getting dumped) but utterly misses why getting fired is so dreadful for working class people, which is that a hell of a lot of folks are one paycheque away from homelessness.
Then, there's a bit where she tries to get all Michael Moore and goes to Lansing, MI, and hears about downsizing. She interviews a few experts, from fuzzily defined consultants to economists, and the point is brought up that, while people have always gotten fired, it’s much more frequent these days, and the next jobs they get aren’t as good as the ones they lost. But we don’t dwell on that sort of negativity for long. It's back to navel-gazing with her friends, until she realizes that getting fired is "God's way of telling you that you should be working somewhere else" and reminds us that every failure is a new opportunity. I'm sure the woman in the movie who got fired because she smoked and her boss wanted to save on insurance payments will be comforted to know that.
It ends, and I kid you not, with Gurwitch thanking Woody Allen for firing her. Because, while hundreds of thousands of workers get fired every year, she was able to turn her job loss into a lucrative employment opportunity. Don't think that you'll be so lucky.
I'll survive, but the timing of this cold is inconvenient to say the least.
By the way, don't see Fired! unless you really want to throw up. I could go on at great length about why it's incredibly reactionary and stupid, but it probably isn't worth the bandwith. It's basically a device to make bosses feel better about firing their workers.
It starts with whiny, neurotic self-pity—and at the risk of sounding anti-Semitic, it's a particularly New York Jewish sort of neurotic self-pity, the sort that made Woody Allen's career. Unfortunately, Allen was right about one thing—Gurwitch is crap at it. So she gets fired, and talks to everyone she knows about their getting-fired experiences.
Problem is that she only seems to know people exactly like herself—neurotic unfunny comedians. So she manages to hit on the self-esteem aspects of getting fired (it's like getting dumped) but utterly misses why getting fired is so dreadful for working class people, which is that a hell of a lot of folks are one paycheque away from homelessness.
Then, there's a bit where she tries to get all Michael Moore and goes to Lansing, MI, and hears about downsizing. She interviews a few experts, from fuzzily defined consultants to economists, and the point is brought up that, while people have always gotten fired, it’s much more frequent these days, and the next jobs they get aren’t as good as the ones they lost. But we don’t dwell on that sort of negativity for long. It's back to navel-gazing with her friends, until she realizes that getting fired is "God's way of telling you that you should be working somewhere else" and reminds us that every failure is a new opportunity. I'm sure the woman in the movie who got fired because she smoked and her boss wanted to save on insurance payments will be comforted to know that.
It ends, and I kid you not, with Gurwitch thanking Woody Allen for firing her. Because, while hundreds of thousands of workers get fired every year, she was able to turn her job loss into a lucrative employment opportunity. Don't think that you'll be so lucky.